The End Of Simpson-Bowles

So, comes the end of the day, and just when you least expect it, Eric Cantor lets John Boehner out of the leg irons long enough to present a "reply" to the president's plan to avoid sliding us all down the Gentle Fiscal Incline. Whether it is lighter on specifics, or on political reality is a question best left to philosophers at this point, but it is in no sense a "plan" any more than is the average food riot. Among its happy provisions, it seeks to raise the age for Medicare eligibility and cut Social Security benefits. If this seems familiar to you, it should, because it's pretty much what Erskine Bowles suggested a year ago, when the president's prospects were not very bright and neither, it should be said, was Bowles. Anyway, I'm sure Boehner accounts himself clever for throwing Bowles's discreet granny-starving back at the president. Cantor may let him have a whole cookie tonight.

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But it's clear what the president should do, once he stops laughing and making bunny ears behind Boehner's head. He should announce publicly that, by gum, Messrs. Simpson and Bowles tried their darndest, but it didn't work out and now we're moving on to other, better ideas. He's got a perfect out — the commission couldn't muster enough votes to present its own "plan" to Congress. This thing failed long ago.

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The Simpson-Bowles Commission was a perfect example of what went wrong with the first Obama Administration. The notion that what we needed to solve the economic damage done to the country over the previous decade was a gathering of Wise Men led by a prickish member of the Republican Undead and a charter member of the Democrats For Plutocrats Club. It was another attempt at bipartisanship for its own sake and an attempt at a deal for a deal's sake and it was shot through with the kind of political naivete and magical thinking that drove people — well, me — crazy over the way the president did things. You could see what was coming from a mile away. Even though the commission failed utterly, its obvious bipartisanish Beltway green-room cred guaranteed that "Simpson-Bowles" would become a fetish object within the political elite and the courtier press. And that is exactly what happened. The thing has hung around the president's neck for two years.

And now, mirabile dictu, John Boehner has given him a chance to jettison this millstone once and for all, simply by proposing its major features in the light of day, and in the context of ongoing Republican obstructionism in the face of the president's re-election. That re-election changed everything. As was made clear today, the bad idea that was Simpson-Bowles, and the really bad ideas that Simpson-Bowles produced, are now John Boehner's ideas. They are the ideas presented by the losers. This is a new start, right? Fresh ideas. A changed political landscape. If the president really wants to adjust the tone, and transform the debate to correlate with his improved political circumstances, he must disenthrall himself from the notions that hamstrung him so badly in his first term. (No longer negotiating with himself is a good start). He should pat Simpson and Bowles on their heads and send them on their way. It's not every day one of your primary political adversaries steps up to take credit for your screw-up.